Agile is NOT new and not enough

So people keep talking about the Agile – Waterfall dichotomy. About agile and un-agile practices. I decided to have an unscientific look at what Agile isn’t. If there is a true dichotomy between Agile and Waterfall, then things opposite of Agile should be either entirely out of scope for projects...

Two recent posts

Cargo cult innovation, play buzzword bingo to spot it

What if simulating innovation was an option? What if you could just fake it until you make it in innovation? I am talking about cargo cult innovation. You know, the kind of innovationism where everything is called innovation, digital or disruptive. The kind of innovationism where you go through all...

Should you automate you release planning?

According to this study you should because expert release planning is 40% less efficient than automated planning. However this is only for simulated projects. In their next work the researchers will try the approach on real project data…

Blogging on “Capping IT Off”

I’ve started blogging at the Capping IT Off blog. Posts there will be about topics that are off topic for this blog. My first post is about e-health innovation and apps. My conclusion? E-health will be powered by thin, targeted applications built on a stable framework.

Revamped Blog for 2014

My social media influence

We’re running a little friendly contest in Capgemini where our experts describe how using social media has worked for them. I felt this was interesting enough to share with a wider audience so here you go.

Can Source Code Metrics predict Maintainability?

I did my Ph.D. thesis on how network factors can predict and influence user satisfaction in wireless networks. I.e. how “hard” but low-level technical factors have an impact on more abstract entities. HegedÅ±s et al does something similar but for source code metrics and their impact on maintainability. It has...

Does Agile lead to secure software?

According to some Norwegian researchers, agile software development in small and medium sized enterprises does not result in more secure software. Their solution is to make some ‘extensions’ to agile development methodology. I am sceptical. I think it would be a matter of how the agile methods are applied not...

Success Factors for Outsourcing Companies

Two days ago, I wrote about the kind of adversarial relationship possibly implicit in using requirements. I have started looking for research on what that relationship looks like and one of the first articles I came up with was a recent (April 2011) systematic literature review on success factors for...

Sometimes, it might seem as if black hat innovation out paces white hat innovation. Whenever there is innovation or invention there is also misuse. As a colleague once put it: “where there is encryption, there is also decryption”.

Change is inevitable, innovation can be avoided. That in summary is what Thomas Cagley responded to part 21 of the innovation series. Gene Hughson followed up with “learning to deal with the inevitable“. We are faced with inevitable change and avoidable innovation, according to Gene and Tom. Punctuated equilibrium Paleontology…

Credit card fraud has always fascinated me. I am intrigued by how easy it is for the criminals. I am astonished at how little is being done to stop it. I wonder why proven solutions are not being rolled out. Innovation is too slow in this area. Scroll down if…

When we want to replace software systems, we often start calling them legacy systems. Sometimes we call legacy after we have made the decision to switch. Sometimes legacy is used as a pejorative to precipitate change. Keep reading for a discussion on a definition of legacy systems.

Switcher’s curse is about conservatism in a world of constant change. There are many fallacies and biases which cause us to stick to legacy decisions. Switcher’s curse is a a fallacy that causes us to switch when we should stay. Keep reading about the challenges of legacy and how to…

Big ideas are dangerous. Something worked somewhere some when but it will not work everywhere and always. Teams and companies are likely to pick some agile practices while they disregard others. Keep reading for a list of the most agile sectors and the most common agile practices.

I had a grand plan, but something happened. I was going to automate my little hobby henhouse. I created a video and a blog post where I reached out to all of you for support. And you responded: you sent me comments and blog posts. Henrik Söderqvist went as far…

When Nest decided to brick all Revolv devices they gave us a strong reminder: sometimes cloud services disappear! When the once search giant Altavista petered out, no one cared and few noticed. The users had already moved on to Bing, Yahoo or Google. Perhaps a few young people reacted, reminded…

When I wrote about the fail fast fallacy, Gene Hughson and Casimir Artmann replied on their blogs: “the need for design” and “fail is not an option“. We decided to create a video together to get a more lively discussion going. Gene asked us how well our joint video was…

Is fail fast a fallacy? It didn’t take long before Microsoft had to take Tay offline. The story made a big splash online, with many news sites writing about it and friends alerting friends on social media. Business Insider wrote that it was “hugely embarrassing for the company.” Wall Street…